Australian Flooding

This week we were supposed to be in Cairns (up by the great barrier reef) for our one trip this Christmas break. Luckily we got a full refund and are staying put in Sydney as most of Queensland is flooded. Reports are the size of the flood is as big or bigger than Europe (yes, all the British aisles, France etc...) You are probably thinking NO -Way! Just remember Australia is the same size as the USA and Queensland is about 1/5th of the country! In addition, reports are that the damage will be greater to Australia than what Hurricane Katrina was to the USA. Why? Because Queensland is where all the crops and coal mines are. On the bright side, at least a lot of people have not died...as there are just not a lot of people in Australia (USA: 300 Million vs Oz: 30 Million--and like I said before about the same size of land). Here are some pix!

This dam overflowing is interesting. Queensland built a lot of dams over the last 7 years which during a drought and everyone below them had little water for crops, it was a huge debate. This year we are having record rain fall (flooding in January) and the wet season ends in March. Here is a map of the flooded areas...note this map was almost three weeks ago, Brisbane is more or less evacuated now--everything has spread!

Luckily for us, Sydney is protected (if the flooding area continues downward) as we are surrounded by the blue mountains...there is no way the blue mountains will flood, it is like Yellowstone!

Queensland has lots of snakes and salt water crocks, and sharks...so you can imagine the problems when the rivers flood and locals walk through it!

Bull Shark (pretty big) and aggressive to humans; swimming down the street in Brisbane.